A typical enterprise network, which can include data centers, contains myriad network elements, including hosts, load balancers, routers, switches, etc. The network connecting the network elements provides secure user access to various services and an infrastructure for deployment, interconnection, and aggregation of shared resource as required, including applications, hosts, appliances, and storage. Improving operational efficiency and optimizing utilization of resources in such networks are some of the challenges facing network operators. Network operators want a resilient infrastructure that consistently supports diverse applications and services and protects the applications and services against disruptions. The application workloads deployed in a typical datacenter can have varying level of latency and bandwidth requirements, which have to be supported by the network infrastructure. A properly planned and operating network provides application and data integrity and optimizes application availability and performance.
Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) technology enables data transfers between compute nodes with minimal central processing unit (CPU) overhead and low latency. Because of this virtue, RDMA deployments are becoming popular in modern enterprise networks.
RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) is a network protocol that allows RDMA transport over an Ethernet network. Currently two RoCE version exist, namely RoCE v1 and RoCE v2. RoCE v1 is a link layer protocol, i.e. a protocol that only operates on a link that a host is physically connected to, and hence allows communication between any two hosts in the same Ethernet broadcast domain, which means that RoCE v1 packets can only be switched but not routed and that RoCE v1 is an example of a non-routable RDMA solution. RoCE v2 is an internet layer protocol, i.e. a protocol that allows to transport packets across network boundaries, which means that RoCE v2 packets can be routed and that RoCE v2 is an example of a routable RDMA solution. Improvements in RDMA implementations, in particular with respect to deployment of RoCE v1 and RoCE v2 transport solutions, are always desirable.